So today I have indulged in a new hobby, or rather an old well-loved hobby that I’ve long since had to banish since becoming a mum; reading. I never seem to have time to myself these days, and the quiet several minutes in the shower or sitting on the loo are almost always broken by either baby cries, the familiar calling of “Mummmmmmm!” or Luca telling me to hurry up as he needs the bathroom urgently. Even my shitting is rushed these days if you’ll pardon my French. But do you know the only time when I’m not rushed? Or rather, rushed but with an actual deadline? My hour at the gym three or four days each week. And so it’s only common sense that this could also be my hour to resuscitate my reading hobby also! And how I have missed it! I shall soon become the Queen of Hobbies once more. 🙂
I guess you’re kind of limited as to what activities you can undertake at the gym whilst reading, so settling on my perch on the pedal bike in the corner of the gym this evening I bent back the spine of my crisp new book and rolled back the pages – even though it stresses the cover, it feels so great to do and it was as satisfying as hugging an old friend or picking at a scab. I began pedalling as page by page I started to read ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’.
Now, I’ve heard that this is a fairly naughty book that women read discreetly and seldom admit to having any knowledge of, even though they own the entire collection of three books, key ring and tee shirt to match. I’d heard there is some hype behind it and on a spontaneous shopping stop off at Tesco’s some months ago Luca bought me the set when we were looking for baby powder and got distracted by the magazines; and the three matte black discreet looking books have sat quietly in the French dresser drawer of my kitchen in amongst the local take-away menus ever since. Until today and their awakening that is!
So pedalling away for forty-five minutes and a total of 15km, or 9.3miles if you will, I lost myself in the first thirty or so pages of volume one and at present it seems like a fairly average American read where every character is impossibly good looking and studying or training for a bright and glowing future. Completely predictable but sickeningly readable, once I’ve started invested my time in beginning a book I never give up until I’ve finished the very last page so as not to have wasted my efforts despite a book being a rubbish read, I convince myself to hold out for the punch and epiphany of the storyline even if it never comes.
Looked up from the pages every ten or so minutes as I pedalled, I noticed the other gym goers around me gradually trickling off, and toward the very end of my session I was shocked to look up and see that I was suddenly surrounded by several silver-haired men puffing and panting away next to me and I laughed out-loud forgetting where I was for a moment as I wondered if they knew what I was reading, smiling to myself. My time at the gym tonight absolutely flew past, and I have to say I was a little annoyed to have to stop cycling and do some weights before my Cinderella trainers would be lost on the gym steps once more until I shall return again tomorrow with any luck and continue where I left off.
And as I lay in bed feeding a snuffling Gabriele his bottle of warm milk beside me with one hand, and single-finger typing my blog with the other I feel strangely calm and balanced now that another small part of normal life has ebbed its way back into the throws of the chaos that is motherhood. Welcome back my dear friend. 🙂
